The recently resigned British Consul wanders through the colorful streets of Cuernavaca, Mexico on the Day of the Dead in 1938, clad in tuxedo and dark glasses. His spectacular appetite for drink has left him incompetent in his toilet and dressing room and impotent with his strangely devoted wife. His unremitting self-absorption leaves him oblivious to the dangers around him. Unlike other movies about alcoholics, there are no coherent moments when sympathy may be excited and the inevitable ending permits us all to walk home, relieved and in sobriety: one of the last and least shows of John Huston's great, but soon to be concluded, career.
Review of Under the Volcano
